The present disclosure relates to an application providing system, a portable terminal device, a server device and an application providing method. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to an application providing system in which, if an application corresponding to identification information transmitted from a server device does not exist in a portable terminal device, the server device automatically downloads the identified application to the portable terminal device.
In recent years, a portable terminal device such as a portable phone includes an IC chip capable of carrying out radio communications. Thus, by carrying out a non-contact communication between an external device and the IC chip employed in the portable terminal device, data can be exchanged between the external device and the portable terminal device. Normally, in the course of a communication with an external device, the IC chip employed in the portable terminal device is not capable of communicating with a controller which controls the execution of applications of the portable terminal device. In the course of a communication with the controller, on the other hand, the IC chip is not capable of communicating with an external device.
In order to solve the problem described above, there has been developed a technology whereby the external device transmits information specifying an application to be executed in the portable terminal device and a special command to the portable terminal device and, in accordance with the command, the portable terminal device smoothly activates the application specified by the external terminal for execution in the portable terminal device as disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2005-108044. When the IC chip employed in the portable terminal device receives the special command, the IC chip transits to a communication state enabling communications with the controller. Then, with the timing of this transition, the controller acquires information received from the external device as the information specifying an application and executes the specified application.
If the application specified by the external device does not exist in the portable terminal device, however, the user may not obtain desired information unless the specified application is downloaded from a web site of a service company to the portable terminal device and executed in the portable terminal device. Thus, in order for the user to obtain the desired information, the user should transmit an e-mail for making a request of the application to the service company or get the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of the web site of the service company.
Since such an operation making a request for an application is cumbersome, in some cases, the user prefers not to acquire the application and gives up the idea to obtain the desired information. In addition, the user may not be able to acquire the application and receive the desired information because the URL is not inputted correctly. Thus, there is a problem that, if the specified application does not exist in the portable terminal device as described above, the user may not obtain the desired information even if the user can acquire data related to desired information and the service company inevitably loses an opportunity to provide the desired information itself to the user.